The tea sounds good, but the podcast was bad. Well not bad, it was well hosted and edited, but I can't imagine you are ever going to say a tea is bad on this thing. Maybe you could review a tea, but I don't need to see you drink it and ponder it's taste profile. Maybe you could just highlight 3 or 4 signature blends a week. Describe what they taste like and maybe even offer 5% off those blends the week the podcast airs.

I thought it was pretty cool. Seems casual enough to appeal to a broad range of people, yet I'd like to see a little more of a background set. But maybe not, maybe that's what keeps it casual - just thinking out loud.

I thought it was pretty cool, definitely a good idea. Zack was very likable.
Some suggestions: keep it short, perhaps you can involve some other people offering their opinions about the featured blend?
Additionally I would rather see information/demonstration how to properly make a perfect cup of tea or pair it with some food than see Zack slurping (no offense)
Set design was fine – to make something more elaborate would be pretty expensive. So simple is good!

Also, why start with signature blends? Even if you expect signature blends to be a big selling point, you should start by promoting the teas that can be used in them. Also, some people like to drink tea, not herbs.

I thought it was pretty good for a first run... Zack is likeable, and I think it was great to have it be sort of a consumer-based review as opposed to a professional tasting or an Adagio staff member's perspective.

For the future, I'd love to see more than one tea per review, especially if there is a good tea series... or a comparison of a couple of teas by different creators which follow a similar theme... like 2 different Coconut Chai blends, where Zack could say... This one leans more strongly to the coconut side, while the other has a subtle coconut taste with a more prominent cinnamon and cardamom flavor and aroma. I know you're not out to diss anyone's signature blends, but a comparison could point out the highlights of 2 similar teas, and help a buyer decide which one most closely matches the flavor they are looking for. If Zack could deliver a coupon code word in the podcast to give a discount for the reviewed tea(s) to listeners, I think that would be a great promo and would encourage more regular listeners.

We are definitely revamping the set. That was just a filler for the time being. We are also working on hammering out a solid format...I'm sure in 3 weeks (for example) things will be much different. Look at my show for example (link in signature) - it takes abit to find the groove.

Reposting from my own thread, could someone change the name of the thread to actually reflect something about Adagio TeaV? I walked right past this one.

I know I am not your average customer, but I felt like posting my feedback here on the vodcast or whatever the kids call it these days.

I would like to see this space used to educate viewers about, well, tea.
Hilight places famous teas are grown, new teas at Adagio, history and mythology surrounding teas, or gong fu cha. Even if I know a lot of this already, such a video would be infinitely more interesting to me than a blend of lemongrass and whether or not this particular non-tea beverage would benefit from sugar.

I appreciate the feedback and some emails that we have received about the first episode. The initial response to Zack seems to be very good and numerous people have mentioned how likable and comfortable he appears. The part people seem to be questioning is our creating a show centered around the signature blends and to address that I will need to tell you how we think of tea and our place in the tea world.

Historically, tea has been pigeonholed into various niches: either a British tradition, an Asian Zen experience, a high tea in the garden affair, or a panacea that will have you living forever. We tend to think of tea differently. Namely, we think of it as a delicious beverage that happens to have wonderful health benefits and a rich history. It's always been our aim at Adagio to try to expand the tent a bit and bring tea into the lives of more people. I think this has been reflected in everything that we have done in the past 10 years. Rather that simply mimic our industry, we have developed and introduced new products whenever possible (ingenuiTEA, utiliTEA & triniTEA to name a few). We source our teas directly from origin in order to provide the freshest teas possible and deliver an excellent value.

Signature blends is our attempt to demystify the blending of teas and allow our growing community to themselves experiment with creating unique and interesting taste profiles. It it our latest effort to making tea accessible and fun and popular. So when Zack and I began talking about a podcast, this is the area I wanted to highlight. I realize some Adagio customers were hoping for a podcast targeted to a more connoisseur audience and to those people, I would suggest checking out TeaMuse, TeaClass & TeaTrends. This project however is aimed at the poor sap sipping on that inferior cup of dust and fannings, not knowing the pleasures that awaits them.

I think Zack makes a good host and i've seen a couple episodes of his Revision3 Beta podcast Bottles, Blends and Brews. BBB is an entertaining podcast (though a bit long sometimes, could maybe use some tighter editing) but Adagio TeaV didn't seem up at that level. I understand its not intended to be, since its only tied to reviewing the Adagio signature blends.

I think you could keep the simple set and single review format, but you would definitely benefit a lot from more professional lighting and more dynamic camerawork and editing (getting closeups of the tea blends in the tin, making the tea, representive pictures of the ingredients, etc.). This first episode was too dark and static for me to see or experience much of anything. Or if you wanted to get even more creative and fun if you have the time, try to theme the episode to match the signature blend. Like say, take an actual afternoon hike while drinking the afternoon hike blend or have a birthday celebration with the birthday tea blend, etc.

I thought it was pretty good for a first run... Zack is likeable, and I think it was great to have it be sort of a consumer-based review as opposed to a professional tasting or an Adagio staff member's perspective.

For the future, I'd love to see more than one tea per review, especially if there is a good tea series... or a comparison of a couple of teas by different creators which follow a similar theme... like 2 different Coconut Chai blends, where Zack could say... This one leans more strongly to the coconut side, while the other has a subtle coconut taste with a more prominent cinnamon and cardamom flavor and aroma. I know you're not out to diss anyone's signature blends, but a comparison could point out the highlights of 2 similar teas, and help a buyer decide which one most closely matches the flavor they are looking for. If Zack could deliver a coupon code word in the podcast to give a discount for the reviewed tea(s) to listeners, I think that would be a great promo and would encourage more regular listeners.

Sarah

I agree with Sarah. Also, focus on descriptive words like you started to with "floral and sweet". Awesome, good and delicious are not descriptive words and don't help us know what the tea is like. This sounds more mean than I want it to, but I have been looking for the "Gary Vaynerchuk" of tea, and I think Zack has a great start.